


The Venetian Venture

by Heavenward (PreludeInZ)



Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, Venice, thoroughly inaccurate depictions of the venetian canal system, vespas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-25
Updated: 2015-06-25
Packaged: 2018-04-06 02:07:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 11,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4203900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PreludeInZ/pseuds/Heavenward
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>I have to preface this one by saying that utterly nothing I’ve written in this series so far has been even remotely reflective of the way in which the canal system of Venice works. Not even a little. I think the only thing I’ve said that’s been accurate is that there are canals in Venice. Oh well. Anyway! Poor Gordon.</p>
          </blockquote>





	1. ink and risotto

If the streets had been dry, the tires of her vespa would have screeched as Lady Penelope took the corner at speed. Instead, slick with the rain that had started at the worst possible time, they skidded and slipped and sent a thin sheet of water flaring from beneath the wheels. Gordon’s arm around her waist is rock steady, but he’s twisted in the seat behind her, intent on the man with the machine gun, riding on the back of the scooter chasing theirs. So far there’ve been a few warning bursts, but nothing anywhere near hitting them. Between the thrum of her scooter’s small engine, the rhythm of the rain on the old cobbled streets, and the throbbing roar of the water, rising in the canals beside them, Lady Penelope can barely think straight.

It hasn’t been a good day. Or–it  _had_ , up until the mortally dangerous scooter chase, through the dark, rainy streets of Venice.

She’d invited Gordon partly because it was  _Venice_ , beautiful, romantic Venice, colloquially the Bride of the Sea. This was a sneaky, privately flirtatious joke on her part, and it was absolutely lost on anyone else. She’d invited Gordon  _mostly_  because Parker had come down with an acute case of laryngitis, heaped on top of a bad chest cold. The Grey Ninja was spry, healthy for his age, and impressively agile. Even for all this, he was still getting on in years, and Lady Penelope sometimes wondered if his perpetual and stubborn involvement in her career of international espionage was asking too much of her dear old friend. She certainly wasn’t about to risk his health, and so he was at home, tucked in bed, with strict instructions not to overdo it. Gordon Tracy was only too happy to volunteer his time.

It was supposed to have been a fairly simple assignment, a covert exchange of intelligence relating to the activities of the mafia within the city. Lady Penelope had arranged to meet her contact for a late dinner in a restaurant off of the Piazzo San Marco, and if it just so happened to serve the best squid ink risotto in the city, then what of it? Gordon had been nervous, adorably so and had merely told the waiter, in his terribly accented and halting Italian, that he’d have what she was having. Lady Penelope had smiled into her menu and gently teased at his ankle with the tip of her shoe. He’d blushed bright pink and stammered his way through the first course after  _that_  affectionate gesture. Of course, they were only posing as a vacationing couple, but it was fun to pretend. And if Lady Penelope laid it on uncharacteristically thick, it wasn’t like Gordon was about to complain about having one of the loveliest women he knew hanging onto his arm.

Then the mafia had  _ruined everything_.

A man in a dark suit had entered the restaurant and, failing to recognize him, Lady Penelope had gone quite pale. There was a distinct air of menace about him, and he carried the dossier she had been expecting to see an old friend and associate with. She was anxious to know what had befallen her contact, but there were more pressing matters to be dealt with. The man with the dossier had been slowly scanning the room. His dark hair was damp, the light fabric of his suit jacket spattered with rain. Overhead the lights flickered softly and there was a low rumble of distant thunder, sinister and foreboding.

Penelope’s hand had reached across the table and her fingers closed on Gordon’s wrist with a light, but urgent pressure. “Darling. I can’t recall if we parked the vespa somewhere dry. Would you be an angel and come with me to check?”

Gordon had already put his fork down at the touch of her hand, and the prearranged codeword (darling) had put him on high alert. His  brown eyes had locked with hers and for a fraction of a moment she’d been distracted by the set of his jaw, the way he looked so handsome in the restaurant’s low candelight, his face shadowed as he got to his feet and offered her his arm.

Then they’d been out the back door and away, Penelope had clambered onto her scooter with Gordon snugly behind her, and fled into the freshly falling darkness, under the cover of rain on the venetian streets. Then the pursuit. And then the staccato burst of machine gun fire, and the sudden growing realization that the mission was as good as failed, and that now it was just a question of getting away.

“The hotel?” Gordon shouted over her shoulder as she kicked the scooter into a higher gear, mindful of just how treacherous the narrow streets were, the cobbled streets uneven and slick, and her sense of balance thrown off by the addition of a passenger.

“Too risky!” Lady Penelope shouted back and winced at the roll of thunder overhead. It’s more than she can explain during a high speed vespa chase, but they shouldn’t have been found at the restaurant. It should have been a lovely, peaceful meal, with pleasant company and good food, sweet italian wine and a covert exchange of secret financial documents to round things out before dessert. Things have gone badly wrong and she isn’t sure how or why, but it’s beside the point. They need to get clear of their pursurers and out of the city–out of the country if they can manage it.

When she loses control of the scooter, it’s another thing she can’t explain. Whether it’s the rain or the darkness or the imbalance of weight, or some other mistake of her own. She hears the metallic ping of bullets off the cowl of her back wheel, she hears Gordon shout, and she feels his arm loosen around her waist, then shoot forward to grab the handlebars and swing them sharply sideways, just as the wheels start to slide out of her control. Lady Penelope had been making for the inner city, better cover, more people, a better chance of finding someone who’ll stop their pursuers, but the route has taken them along a broad thoroughfare, running alongside an unprotected stretch of canal. The water is surging in the wind and the storm, dark, inky black. Seconds later it’s freezing cold and roaring silence, and over her head.

The scooter had kept purchase for only a few moments on low stones leading off the edge of the canal, but it rapidly falls away beneath her, wheels caught, embedded in sediment, and Lady Penelope is pitched head first into the water. It’s late October, and the rain had already soaked her jacket and begun to chill her skin, but the canal is so cold that the shock forces air from her lungs, bubbling to the surface and away from her. And then it’s blind, directionless panic, the pull of a current she wasn’t expecting, lightning flashing somewhere above her. One of her feet catches in oozing, sticky mud, one of her hands stretches upward and for a moment cool wind brushes her fingers. Lady Penelope never panics. It’s a new and horrible sensation.

She doesn’t even remember about Gordon until a hand catches her wrist, and he’s the only source of warmth left in the world. And then his arm circles beneath her, and she feels herself turn in the water–upward, as her back presses against his chest. When her face breaks the surface she’s coughing and gasping and crying and water is plugging her ears and her nose and the taste of it is foul and frightening. But he’s still behind her, and his arms are strong and powerful, looped beneath hers.

Some rational spark remaining in her brain seems to know to try to be still, though she’s choking for breath and her urge is to fight the surface. That spark of rationality flares and catches, calms her just slightly. This is what he _does_ , this is his job. He’d been out of his element all evening and she’d been privately enjoying it, seeing him off-balance in her world of international glamour and class. But as soon as they hit the water and someone needed saving, there was no one else in the world she could have wished for.

The current in the canals is stronger with the inflow of water from the storm overhead. Everything is dark and cold and wet and Lady Penelope isn’t sure she’s ever been more frightened in her entire life. There are people shouting distantly in Italian, and she can feel herself moving through the water. She can feel the pull against her legs, the tug of the persistent current. Gordon’s still propelling them backward, towards the canal wall, strong and competent and oh, she’s so glad he’s here.

The world above the water is hazy blue instead of inky black, and there are stabbing points of bright electric light casting a greasy sheen on the water. Lady Penelope’s shoulder hits the edge of the canal wall, and Gordon pulls her close. For only a moment she hears him breathing–panting, practically, heavy and laboured against her cheek. Before she can twist in the water to face him, an impossibly strong arm has her by the back of her tasteful, Italian dress, boosting her upward and out of the water, supporting her just until she gains purchase on the cobbled street above.

With her knees beneath her, and her hands flat on the gritty pavement, a hiccuping cough of water bursts from her lips and it’s a few more moments before she can turn back to the canal edge. It’s only a foot or so down to the surface of the water, but all she can see in the darkness is a hand scrabbling briefly at the edge of the bricks. Then an elbow, and then Gordon’s face. There’s an angry red graze above his eye, and he has to pause at the edge to catch his breath, but he’s almost clear of the water. There’s more shouting, more Italian, and a pounding of footsteps through the streets behind her.

Then, hollow and unearthly, another roar of water. Louder than anything Penelope’s heard yet tonight.

There’s a gate built into the wall of the canal. Heavy and immovable most of the time, but when the canal water reaches a certain threshold, it opens to drain away and prevent the water from overflowing the banks. It opens with a deafening roar of suction and Gordon’s hand is briefly white knuckled at the edge and then he’s yanked bodily from the wall and under. Again. It slams shut with a horrible finality, and then  _that_  is the loudest sound Lady Penelope has heard yet tonight. It rings in her head, her heart, her hands against the cold stones beneath her.

The Italian voices resolve themselves into actual Italians, and there are hands reaching for her from every corner, and she can’t translate quickly enough in her head to figure out what’s going on. “Gordon,” she manages, dully and somewhat stupidly, as she reaches for his hand again. But there’s only the bare brick of the canal wall, and eddies of suction teasing the upper lip of the drainage tunnel.


	2. blood and saltwater

Gordon can hold his breath for approximately ten minutes. This, admittedly, is in the best possible circumstances, after an hour of meditation, at home in a heated pool, and under only nine feet of water, with Virgil waiting above the surface with a stopwatch. Free-diving is a hobby more than it is a practical skill, the need of it almost never comes up. It’s just relaxing, meditative. Silence and pressure and the calming, peaceful blue of the deep end of the pool.

In the dark, in Venice after a glass of heady Italian wine with dinner and a vespa crash, being swept head over heels in a freezing torrent of rain and canal water and  _underground_ –this time diminishes to about three minutes.

It’s been nearly two minutes when the surge of the current in the dark outlet tunnel slams him painfully into a solid metal grate. Water froths and foams past him, draining down until he can wrap his fingers around the bars and heave his head and shoulders above water, gasping for breath and hurting in more places than he can readily identify. “Everywhere” seems to about cover it.

Still gulping air, Gordon can smell the salt water tang of the Adriatic Sea and the briny chill of seawater in his mouth mingles with the warm saltiness of blood from the inside of his cheek. That seems bad, but he has more pressing problems. The storm drain he’s been flushed into is claustrophobically small. If it were dry and empty, he might have been able to stand flat on the floor of it, but this is buried in at least a foot and a half of mud, cutting neatly across a segment of the circular drain.

There’s no way he’s fighting his way back to the canals, not against the suction of coursing water and the irresistible pull of the ocean beyond. Gordon groans brokenly and tries to adjust his grip. His fingers are numb and they slip on wet metal Before he’s filled his lungs properly he’s back under again, viciously buffeted against the grille and trapped as the tunnel fills again with another flood of storm water. He needs out, and soon, he’s well aware he can’t last long under this sort of assault. Fumbling in the dark, slowed by the cold and the ache all through him, he searches for a way past the gate.

He finds hinges, but also a chain and a padlock. There’s no forcing it open, but the bars are vertical, and the space between them is just wide enough to be tempting. Gordon’s always teased Alan for being scrawny, and Alan’s always been envious of his older brother’s lithely muscled swimmer’s body, but right now Gordon would trade anything to have his brother’s slim frame. Releasing the bars, he twists painfully, shrugs out of his suit jacket. It’s confining, heavy, and he’s not sorry to be rid of it and the extra bulk.

Gordon slips an arm through the bars–easy enough, but then it’s his shoulder and his torso, and he needs to exhale the air he’s been holding in his lungs in order to start to squeeze through. He’s always had excellent control of his breathing. He’s always kept a cool head in the water, his instincts taking over, all those years of training. Drills in the pool, he’s been SCUBA certified since he was ten. He still swims at least twenty laps in the pool every morning. And it’s made him just bulky and muscular enough that he can feel the rough metal of the bar pressed against his back, scraping the skin through his silk shirt. He’s cold and almost numb through, and the pain of abrasion feels almost like heat.

It crosses his mind that he’s ruined this shirt, and Penny–Lady Penelope, he can’t call her Penny, he only ever calls her Penny in his head–had picked it out. She’d teased him about his terrible taste in clothing, and selected what she defined as a  _tasteful_  shirt for him to wear to dinner. Then they’d had a flirtatious, mock argument–the kind they’d been having since he’d been old enough to flirt with a woman three years his senior–about how there was no appreciable difference between the sort of floral shirt she picked out, compared to the sort he did, outside of the unbelievable number on the price tag.

Darkness is haloing his vision, and it’s a different sort of darkness than just of being underwater, underground, at night, because it’s creeping, inky at the edges of his thoughts as well. Penny’s face in his memory is shadowed, and damned if his last memory of her isn’t going to be clear. Gordon shuts his eyes a moment and focuses, finds his center.

And then it’s his right hip squeezing past the bars, the ridges of his pelvis catching painfully. Then that place with the sharpest sort of pain, the place he’s aggressively been pretending isn’t as bad as he thinks it might be. Without meaning to Gordon feels his lips part reflexively, trying to suck air past his gritted teeth as white hot agony shoots through his body, radiating from his left hip.

But of course there isn’t any air.

This has his throat spasming, his lungs igniting with fire from the lack of oxygen. Gordon’s hands grasp the bars behind him, forcing his body the rest of the way past the grate. The outlet tunnel still encloses him on all sides, but he kicks off the bottom, and then starts to let that insistent current do more of the work. He’s exhausted and actively blacking out, passing to and from consciousness as the torrent of water swells gently out of the tunnel and into the lagoon, the seafront of Venice.

All water reaches the sea eventually, and so has he.

It’s only luck that this seafront is bristling with piers and docks, moored boats and all manner of ropes and buoys and netting. Gordon retains his next burst of diminishing awareness long enough to struggle, hacking and gasping, over to one of the long piers. It’s crooked and wooden and slimy with algae but it’s clustered with boats, and it’s his salvation. It’s all he can do to reach the nearest of them–some rugged little wooden craft, probably a century old, not that he’s complaining, something Penny would know the name of and would pronounce correctly in her perfect, lilting Italian, so _pretty_  her voice, her face, her eyes, just  _her_ – and Gordon’s brain slowly blinks out again, the halo of darkness closing like a camera aperture, freeze framing her face. She’s last thing he thinks of as his fingers tangle in the mooring ropes, hanging off the side of the little unnamed boat. Penny. Lady Penelope.

* * *

Lady Penelope is further inland (such as it is), and well-meaning Ventians are attempting to bundle her into one of the city’s canalbound ambulances. She’s putting up a hell of a fuss, and she’ll drive the lot of them off as soon as she’s able, insisting she’s fine, and shouting his name. He’s less than a mile away, but dead to the world. Limply clinging to the side of a bobbing, battered little craft, Gordon's equally battered himself. As the salt water of the lagoon swells back and forth, it rocks him almost gently, unresisting, on the surface.

It’s cold and it’s dark and still storming. And the worst of it all is that Gordon Tracy’s been shot.


	3. luck and strangers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I have to preface this one by saying that utterly nothing I’ve written in this series so far has been even remotely reflective of the way in which the canal system of Venice works. Not even a little. I think the only thing I’ve said that’s been accurate is that there are canals in Venice. Oh well. Anyway! Poor Gordon.

Lady Penelope is soaked through and shivering, but she’s broken free of the crowd of people trying to usher her back to the canal edge and into a waiting boat, repeating “ _Ospedale, signora!”_  There’s no time and she doesn’t trust anyone, and she can’t seem to make any of them understand that she was  _with somebody_ , and that he was pulled away and swept under the water when a storm drain opened beneath him.

She feels gritty, filthy with canal water, and her dress is ruined. Her vespa—a rental, and not hers, technically—is embedded in sediment at the bottom of the canal. And Gordon’s gone.

Gordon can’t be gone.

Penelope keeps seeing his face, flashing pale in the dark at the edge of the canal, dark blood seeping into his eye from a graze on his forehead. She remembers the way his hands found her in the cold and the dark, how  _strong_ he was, boosting her up to street level. How well the evening had been going, and the day before that, how nice it had been to walk through these same streets, in the daylight, on his arm. How charming it was that he didn’t think they would work out, that she was out of his league. As though he and his brothers weren’t some of the most noble men she’d ever met, and in a league entirely their own.

But this sort of thing isn’t their job, hasn’t ever been their job. It’s  _her_  job, and it’s time she got to work.

All water reaches the sea eventually, and that’s the direction she heads, hugging the edge of a canal and following the flow of the water. Gondola and other craft bump against the canal walls in the dark, every impact startling her and rattling her nerves. The streets of Venice are deserted, in the rain and the dark, except for mafiosi and the people they’re after. They were being chased, before they were run off the road. Normally by now Penelope would have called for backup, but her compact is in her purse, and her purse is at the bottom of a canal. It’ll have to wait until she gets somewhere safe with a phone line.

But not before she finds Gordon. The notion of  _not_  finding Gordon has her hands clenching, her manicured fingernails digging into her palms and her heart in her throat.

She has to find Gordon.

Gordon’s a strong swimmer, and that’s a massive understatement. Gordon’s practically half fish, she’s never known anyone as at home in the water is he is. He’ll be fine. Or at least, she keeps telling herself that, as she reaches the deserted seafront, with its swelling waves and boats bobbing, rocking restlessly on the chopping lagoon water.

He  _has_ to be okay.

* * *

The boat itself isn’t a hundred years old. It’s probably not more than twenty—not even as old as Gordon is. It’s called a  _Sandòlo_ , and it’s a common enough sight in the Laguna Veneta, and has been for much longer than a century. They’re cheap, easy enough to build, and more eco friendly than motored alternatives. Slender and light, they’re often used for racing, and this one in particular has won its share of impromptu jaunts against friends. Its owner, conversely, is a year or so older than Gordon, and helped his father build the boat when he was about five years old. It’s precious, important to him, and he’s worried about it in the storm. He mentions this to his father and the old man, well-experienced in matters of boats and storms, offers to go with him, a pair of extra hands.

When the young man reaches the dock, he plays a flashlight down into the water, and groans, cursing softly to himself. His first thought is for his poor little craft and the way it’s listing, dipped heavily on its side in the water. He must not have secured the cover, it must have blown loose. The rain is slackening and the roll of thunder has softened, but it looks like he was right to worry for the vessel. It hasn’t capsized, thank heaven, but there’s water lapping at the gunwales and splashing over the sides. His father, when he catches up, will give him a lecture about this.

He clambers down from the pier and into the boat, and immediately it feels wrong. Even in the choppy water, something about the balance of it is off, out of true. Gingerly, careful of how he shifts his weight, he leans over the listing side and freezes at the sight of a human figure, lifeless and drenched and tangled in the mooring line.

In a blur of panic, he yells for his father and scrambles to the side of the boat. He’s a young man, strong, and with adrenaline coursing through him he gets a hold of the man in the water, and hauls him upward into the bottom of his little boat. The craft steadies, rights itself, free of the weight that had been pulling it down. Its owner, already losing hope, heaves the man he’s rescued upward again, boosts him into his father’s waiting hands and onto the solidity of the pier.

He’s already given the poor man up for lost, when his father lowers the limp figure gently to the damp wood of the dock surface. The old man’s face is similarly grim as he bends over with an ear to the blond’s chest to listen for a heartbeat, for the sound of water in his lungs. Numbly, the young man beams his flashlight where he thinks it will help, as his father gently tries to coax breath from the stranger’s body.

It’s the beam of the flashlight and the sudden, violent burst of coughing that attracts the attention of the woman prowling the waterfront.

The first thing Gordon hears, drifting vaguely back to awareness, is the sound of her running towards him, her feet pounding on the pier and reverberating in his aching head as she shouts his name. He’s gone again by the time she reaches him, dropping to her knees at his side, and he doesn’t feel her hands–warmer than he is, though not by much–cradling his face, cupping his jaw with one hand as the other plunges into his damp hair.

“Oh,  _Gordon_ ,” whispered, soft and just a little bit tearful, before Lady Penelope straightens up and takes charge.

* * *

The orders issued, in flawless, rapid Italian, had the young man and his father lifting the blond stranger between them and following her back up the pier before either of them thinks to mention that he really needs a hospital. This suggestion is briskly declined and the woman instead leads them to a back alley behind a small hotel, near the back entrance. The young man and his father share a look of trepidation as they lower the half-drowned man to slump on top of an old wooden crate by the back door. He’s only semi-conscious and groaning with the movement, still hacking up canal water. But when she crouches in front of him and catches his jaw again, he leans his face against her palm, blinks and manages a weak grin.

“ _Ciao, bella._ ”

“Gordon, darling. I’ll be right back,” she promises, and pecks a light kiss on his forehead.

There’s a lantern over the back door, casting down a halo of light. The rain has eased into a soft drizzle and even in the dark, she’s lovely. Her face is delicate and her eyes flash the same stormwater blue of the sea before rough weather. She’s similarly soaked to the skin, and declines when offered the older man’s poncho.  _< <Watch him, please. Thank you for your help.>>_

_< <Signora, the hospital is not far, and–>>_

But she’s already turned and gone, and the old man is left shaking his head and chewing his lower lip. His son is standing awkwardly nearby, with a hand on the stranger’s shoulder, supporting him. Idly he lifts his other hand to brush his hair from his eyes, but this elicits a gasp of horror–his hand is lined with red, dark blood clinging in the ridges of his palm.

His arm had crossed the stranger’s lower back, his hand had been on his hip. Kneeling to search for the wound, his fingers tug the sodden floral shirt from the waist of the man’s pants and he freezes at the sight of a bullet wound, just above his hip bone.

“ _Padre_ ,” he whispers hoarsely, “ _Mafia_.”

This explains why they hadn’t gone to the hospital, and it changes things. Regardless of which side of the crime family the stranger is on (and the iron-willed woman who’d found him), it would be unwise to be caught having helped him. He doesn’t  _look_  like a mafiosa–in the light he’s clearly very blond, and his skin is tanned but not swarthy. The woman’s accent had been English, and her general demeanour led father and son to hope that they were on the right side of the law. But still–

When Lady Penelope finishes checking into a room (on the ground floor, as near as possible to the back exit) and returns for Gordon, she finds him alone, pale and shivering. The old man’s poncho has been draped over him, and when Penelope shakes him awake and gets his arm around her shoulders, she finds a note tucked in his pocket, along with a crumpled handful of Euros.

_Siamo spiacenti signora, è troppo pericoloso. Buona fortuna._


	4. towels and bedsheets

He doesn’t remember getting into the hotel, or into the room. He remembers hitting the bed face-first and starting to shiver uncontrollably, as lights come on and Lady Penelope moves around the room, checking the locks on the window and double bolting the door. She moves out of his field of view and for a minute or so he forgets she exists, hazy with pain and flirting with unconsciousness.

There’s that shooting pain in his left side to worry about, and the way his back is all scraped and torn from pushing through the gate in the storm drain. He’s bruised and battered, but mostly exhausted. If it weren’t for the same training that had pulled him through the ordeal, Gordon would have given in to weariness and the creeping certainty of shock by now. As is, he’s taking deep breaths and staying calm and conscious, despite the relentless pull of sleep, cold and dark like the canal water. The canal. The vespa crash before that. And before that, the restaurant with Lady Penelope. Gordon manages to lift his head at the sound of water running in the bathroom, and remembers– “…Penny?” He isn’t supposed to call her Penny, but she comes back anyway, her arms full of towels and an ice bucket of water from the bathroom.

“Gordon. I’d like you to be very still, please. You’ve been shot.” Her voice is calm but her eyes are reddish and her hands are trembling as she comes to sit beside him on the bed, where he’s curled up on his right side, flat on the mattress. She’s pulled his shoes off and propped his feet up on every pillow in the room, and he hadn’t noticed before now. “I need to have a look.”

“First aid,” he comments, aware of how stupid it sounds, and grinning weakly at her. “That’s my job.”

She shifts her weight on the mattress and reaches over to squeeze his fingers, her answering smile is faint, but it helps. “You can follow along and tell me how I’m doing.”

Gordon tries, he really does. It’s not that he doesn’t trust her to know what to do, but that he doesn’t want her to be so worried. But he can’t help a low groan of pain through clenched teeth as she folds over a hand towel and presses it tightly to the wound in his side. Beyond that he can barely focus on what she’s doing, and time seems to stutter and skip as Lady Penelope works, and the next thing he’s aware of is the sound of tearing fabric. She’s making a bandage out of some sheets. Clever.

The pressure has eased off the place where he’d been shot–this is still a piece of reality that he can’t fully get a grasp on–but the bleeding seems to have stopped, even if there’s an alarming amount of blood soaking the towels she’d pressed against his side. “Penny, they’re gonna charge you for that,” he mumbles, his voice thicker and slower than he expected. “Lady Penelope. Trashing hotel rooms. Shame on you. You’ll get a reputation.”

“It went clean through, darling. It isn’t as bad as I thought,” she answers, glossing over the observation as she continues to work. Her attention is careful, almost expert, and soon she’s pressed another pad of clean towels over his hip, and passed a triangular bandage like a bandana beneath his uninjured side. She knots this tightly and examines her work for a few moments, before heaving a sigh and gathering up bloodied towels and torn sheets. The blood on her fingers is dry as she reaches over and touches his cheek. Then she gets up and vanishes into the bathroom again.

Gordon drifts off to the sound of running water, comforting the way it always is, even after what he’s been through.

* * *

The call comes directly through to TB5’s secure line. What John can’t work out is what’s  _making it_. It has none of the usual data signatures, it’s not coming from any device he recognizes. There’s no GPS data to triangulate, no IP address–nothing he recognizes. It’s raw audio, a basic digital signal beaming from a nearby satellite. An  _old_  satellite.

Baffled, and partly expecting a wrong number (it wouldn’t be the first time) he authorizes the connection, with a brief note to the onboard AI, “EOS, put up ancillary firewalls. Incoming call.”

He opens the channel. “Uh. Hello?” Well,  _that’s_  unprofessional. John clears his throat. “This is International Rescue, you’ve reached Thunderbird Five.”

“John, it’s Penelope. I’ve had an assignment go wrong, and–”

John winces. Gordon’s  _date_. “…oh, is it going that badly?” He misses the urgency in her tone, and sighs sympathetically. “Poor Gordon. Still, I’m glad you gave him a shot, maybe now he’ll  _shut up_ …”

“ _John._  We were caught at the drop-off point, our cover was blown. It was just supposed to be an exchange of intelligence, but the crime family here were warned, I was expected, and Gordon–”

Oh. Oops. John’s tone grows crisp, professional, interrupting, “FAB. I’ve got Virgil available, and Kayo’s in reserve, I’ll have her suit up and deploy as soon as I have your location–I just can’t seem to–this isn’t your usual call signature, my system doesn’t recognize the network–what in the world are you  _calling_  me with? A potato?”

“A land line. We’re in Venice, the city is old. It’s a little hotel, I don’t know the name or the street, we–Gordon’s hurt, John. I’ve done my best, but–”

He finally recognizes the uncharacteristic panic in her voice and pauses. “Can you get to a hospital?” he asks, tone softening. “How bad is he?”

There’s a shaking sigh over the line. “I–without being sure of the threat, I don’t want to risk breaking cover. I’ve done what I can, he–he was shot. Nowhere vital. It’s not as bad as it could have been and I stopped what bleeding there was, but I don’t want to move him far. I know this isn’t International Rescue’s usual purview. These are dangerous men, and I don’t–I wasn’t prepared for this.”

John’s voice grows reassuring, in full emergency dispatch mode. “Virgil’s loading the medical module. He’ll be en-route shortly. He’ll airdrop Kayo for secure extraction, just sit tight. I’ll…uh. I’ll see if I can work out this phone network, and get your precise location. I’ve never seen anything all snarled together like this–” He stops himself again, aware that he’s rambling. “Gordon’s tough, Lady Penelope,” he offers. “He’ll be all right. Were you hurt at all?”

“No. No, I’m fine. Thanks to Gordon.” There’s another soft sigh and then briskly, covering some softer, more vulnerable emotion, “I should get off the line and check on him. Thank you, John.”

“Take care, Lady Penelope. They’ll be there soon.”

* * *

Gordon’s fallen asleep, one arm tucked beneath his head, the other wrapped around his chest. His ribs are almost certainly bruised, hopefully not broken. There’s still that graze on his forehead, darkened with dried blood, to say nothing of the bandaged bullet wound, just above his hip. She checks this and is relieved to find it’s not started to bleed again. The bed’s a mess, a tangle of torn sheets and blood, with Gordon nestled in the middle. Gently she pulls a blanket up, snug around his shoulders.

Lady Penelope doesn’t sit back down on the bed, but on the floor beside it, resting her head on the mattress and sagging slightly. She’s tired too, and still chilled and damp, but mostly she’s sorry that any of the evening’s events happened at all. It had all gone so wrong, and she should have known better. Should have known what to look for, should have been more cautious. Should have known better than to drag Gordon into the middle of it, in absence of Parker. She and her driver are both trained for this sort of thing. Gordon knows about watercraft and rescue protocols and deep sea diving. He doesn’t know about mafiosi and machine guns and high speed chases.

And his brown eyes have blinked open and it’s a moment before Lady Penelope feels him watching her and lifts her face to rest her chin on the edge of the bed. He grins that slightly crooked grin again and she shakes her head, utterly unconvinced that she deserves even the suggestion of affection. “I’m so terribly sorry, Gordon. Virgil and Kayo are on their way.”

“S'fine. Don’t be on the floor, Penny.”

She shakes her head again, but then he grunts slightly and shifts, stretching his hand out for hers. Immediately she feels awful for having made him move and gets up to sit beside him. “Oh, darling, do lie still. Gordon. Please.”

“C'mere.”

Several insistent tugs and nudges later and she’s resting with her back against the headboard, and he’s nestled his head in her lap. The skirt of her dress is still damp and he winces as he settles down, but eventually he lets out a slow breath and relaxes again. It’s awkward for a few moments, but then Lady Penelope and gives in, burying her fingers in his hair and taking his hand. “You keep calling me Penny,” she comments idly.

“Sorry, your ladyship.” He opens one eye and arches an eyebrow at her. “You keep calling me ‘darling’.”

“It’s a codeword for danger. I did tell you.”

“All three times?” He squeezes her fingers, gentle pressure. His fingers around hers are warming up, but his eyes are falling closed again, and her heart just about breaks for how tired he sounds, and still flirting with her. “I counted.”

“If you’d counted, darling, I think you’d find it was four. But you’ve lost rather a lot of blood and it’s been a very dangerous evening.” Lady Penelope allows herself a small, sad smile, and dips her face down to lightly kiss his forehead again, her damp blonde hair falling loose over her shoulder and brushing his cheek. “Now hush.”


	5. entry and exit

Lady Penelope doesn’t realize she’s fallen asleep, until Gordon’s wrist is gently tugged from her fingers and she wakes with a start, horrified that she’s fallen asleep in an anonymous hotel room in a city where people are trying to kill her. There’s a flutter of panic inside her chest, but it’s only Kayo, standing over them. IR’s Security Officer lifts a finger to her lips before Penelope can say anything. Abashed, she pushes herself up just slightly from where she’d nestled down on her side, across the top of the hotel bed. Gordon’s still dead to the world with his head resting on her knee, and Kayo’s taking his pulse. She nods, satisfied, and moves on to look the rest of him over.

“He’ll be unbearable about this, you know. Getting shot by gangsters,” she whispers, with a slight smile as Lady Penelope gingerly sits up and brushes her fingers through her hair, before giving it up for hopeless. She’s not sure she’s ever been more disheveled in her life. Kayo kneels on the bed to peer beneath the bandage covering Gordon’s side. “Through and through. Lucky. He’s going to brag about it for weeks, like it makes him some sort of tough guy.” She pats her adoptive brother’s shoulder lightly. “Like it’s some sort of manly thing, you and I’ve both been shot twice as many times as he has.  _Each_.”

Penelope shakes her head and looks away. “It’s nothing to be proud of. It’s sloppy and careless and I should never have permitted it to happen. It was far too dangerous to bring him along. I should have gone solo.”

Kayo looks her up and down appraisingly. “If you’d asked, I would have been happy to join you,” she offers, and they’re both still talking softly. “If you were expecting trouble–I know I’m not really a Tracy, and I’m certainly not Parker, but I’m trained for covert ops. I would have been glad to back you up.”

“It wasn’t that.” Lady Penelope pauses, her hands clenched in her lap and her head bowed. It strikes Kayo that this is the first time she’s ever seen their London Agent rattled.“I let it seem exciting, I got carried away with the… the  _niceness_  of it all. A day in Venice, even with all the usual espionage. Call signs and secret messages, roaming around the city undercover, pretending to be here on holiday.” She sighs heavily. “It only seems romantic, this job. It’s too dangerous to forget that it isn’t.”

The list of Kayo’s skills is long. She’s an expert in most forms of unarmed combat, a seasoned pilot on a level with the rest of the Tracys, and a sharp, clever operative all around. However, as incisive as she is about human nature—she’s never  _quite_  mastered the phenomenon of “girl talk”. Still, it’s plain to see what has Penelope upset. Kayo makes a mental note to spend more time with Lady Penelope, when circumstances are a little less dire. “He’ll be okay,” she offers, and nudges Gordon’s shoulder to demonstrate. “Rise and shine, Squidboy.”

When he stirs and grumbles something, lifting a hand to bat Kayo’s away, Lady Penelope gets up and crosses the room to stand at the window. She folds her arms across her chest and keeps her back to the pair of them, trying to stifle her guilt, as Kayo helps Gordon sit up. After a few long moments, she looks over her shoulder.

Gordon’s leaning heavily on Kayo’s arm as she steadies him and pulls out a flashlight to check his pupils, but he still manages a lopsided grin. “Did Lady P tell you I got shot, Kayo? ‘Cuz I did. Oh man. Did you look? Is it gonna be a scar, you think? Oh man. It’s gonna be great.”

Kayo’s answering sigh is exasperated, but her voice has the note of a slight smile, “See how great you think it is when Scott gets ahold of you. And Grandma Tracy’s going to have twice the lecture for whatever’s left after he’s through. Yes, I looked. It’s not too bad, you were lucky. Think you can walk, Gordon?”

“…do I have to walk far?”

“Down the hallway. Three flights of stairs.”

“Better carry me.”

This is answered with a grunt and a slight cracking sound as Kayo flexes her back and bends at the waist to haul Gordon over her shoulders.

“Whoa! Whoa whoa  _whoa_. Kayo, jeez.  _Kidding_. Ow. I’ll walk.”

Kayo shrugs. “Well, the offer stands if  _you_  can’t. Virgil’s going to drop a lift from Thunderbird 2 to the roof and then we’re in the clear. He loaded the infirmary module, I’ll give you a shot of something if you’re really hurting once we’re en route.”

“That’ll be worth three flights of stairs. Gimme a hand, Kayo.” There’s a dampening of the lightness of his voice, and the way he still sounds hurt and exhausted brings Penelope to a decision.

“Kayo, if you have the situation in hand, I’ll take my leave,” she announces, wishing she had her purse and compact to gather as she makes to leave the room. Something to fill her hands so she doesn’t feel as awkward with her hand on the doorknob. So she had something to look at instead of Gordon, his arm heavy around Kayo’s shoulders, blinking at her, bewildered.

“Hey, wait—” he starts, but she turns towards the open door and cuts him off before he can finish.

Her tone is brisk, professional, the way it should have been from the beginning. “I have to find out what happened to my contact, and I need to reach out to any other agents in town. Your extraction should provide me enough cover to move freely until I can make my way back to London. Take care, Gordon. Kayo.”

Then she’s gone, down the hallway and out the same back door, before either of them can react. She has, after all, a job to do, in the rain and the damp of the grey Venetian dawn. She regrets a great many things, leaving him, but mostly she wishes she could have said just how sorry she is. And that she hadn’t seen that brief flicker of heartbreak across his face. 

It will be over a week before Gordon hears from her again.


	6. tea and roses

Gordon’s been off for a week, at Scott’s insistence, and the moping has started to become unbearable. Gordon mopes in a grand, tragic fashion, flinging himself dramatically onto chairs or couches or across the ends of people’s beds. He’ll heave enormous sighs and stare morosely into the middle distance until asked what’s wrong, at which point he will transparently protest that everything is fine.

Everything is  _not_  fine, and it’s plainly clear that Gordon’s date with Lady Penelope in Venice could have gone better, to say the very least. Further, it’s sort of an open secret that their London Agent hasn’t returned–nor in fact, even  _taken_  any of his calls since then. Everyone’s a little bit on eggshells about Gordon and Lady Penelope, and the wisest course of action seems to be getting to work and not mentioning anything.

This is the wisest course of action according to a group of boys with the emotional sensitivity of toasters, as far as relationships are concerned.

So Kayo’s the one who finally gets sick of him–his brothers are all far too used to Gordon and his melodrama to indulge him any further than necessary–and finds him lying sprawled beneath the breakfast table, still in his pajamas and housecoat and starting to get stubbly in the face, as apparently shaving is beyond his grasp any longer. It’s nearly three in the afternoon. Kayo rolls her eyes and sits down on the floor beside him. “Gordon. This is getting out of hand.”

“Lemme alone, Kayo. I’ve been  _shot_ , Scott says I’m supposed to be recuperating.” He lifts a hand and limply waves her away. “This is what recuperating looks like.”

“No, this is what  _sulking_  looks like. You’re mooning about and lying on the floor like a dead fish, Gordon. Do you want to know why you haven’t talked to Lady Penelope since Venice?”

This is answered with an enormous tragic sigh. “Because it was all too good to be true anyway, and now she hates me and probably will forever.”

“Gordon…”

“ _Forever._ ”

Kayo kicks him in the ribs. Gently, but enough to get her point across. “Gordon, you’re twenty-five years old. You’re not a lovesick thirteen year-old, get off the floor. First of all, Lady Penelope feels terrible that you got hurt, she blames herself and it’s mostly guilt that has her avoiding you. Second, I talked to Parker, and he told me that her ladyship came with a case of pneumonia from after the trip, and is on strict bedrest. Probably she’s just been lying low until she feels better.”

“ _Pneumonia._ ” Gordon sits up so fast he nearly concusses himself on the underside of the table. “…is she–?”

Kayo winces as Gordon rubs his forehead and holds up her hands as he scrambles out from the underside of the table. “She’s fine. She’s _recuperating_. But if you wanted to go talk to her, all I’m saying is; it’s not like she’s going anywhere.”

Gordon’s already hollering for a ride from Virgil and shrugging out of his robe as he bolts for the bathroom for a shower and a shave. Kayo, smiling privately to herself, goes to offer to help him pack a bag.

* * *

The Tracys have an entire Island, but Creighton-Ward Manor puts it to shame as far as sheer grandeur goes. Gordon regrets asking Virgil to drop him off at the end of the driveway, because it’s not walk up the driveway, it’s a  _trek_ , nearly two miles through the manicured grounds. And by the time he gets to the end of it, Parker’s already waiting by the front entrance, his arms folded and his eyes narrowed. He has an umbrella in hand; the early morning sky is graying, threatening rain. “You aren’t h'expected, Master Gordon,” he comments, with the extra H’s in their usual places, and continues, “Her ladyship is sleeping.”

Gordon has to stop to double-over and get his breath back, one hand braced against his thigh, the other massaging a painful stitch in his side, just above the place where he’d caught a stray bullet not a week earlier (also painful). This is, admittedly, most of the way healed thanks to a combination of Penelope’s expert first aid and further treatment by Brains back on the island. His custom hydrocolloid bandages having been the dressing of choice for injuries sustained by the Tracys ever since their conception, and most scrapes and dings heal up quickly. General malaise after a week of loafing about is another matter, and Gordon has no one to blame but himself for the fact that he’s winded. “I heard she got sick,” is the first thing he manages to say, once he’s straightened back up and caught his breath.

“Plunging her ladyship into a frigid canal in October tends t’ do that,” Parker answers dryly. There’s a  _thwop_  sound as he opens his umbrella and swings it upward, in almost the same moment as a rumble of thunder splits the heavens open, as the threatening skies make good. A vindictively torrential downpour has Gordon soaked to the skin and shivering in less than a minute. It’s too loud to talk over the roar of rain, but Parker’s giving him a decidedly irritated stare. “I suppose ‘ospitality dictates that I invite you in,” he says finally, though if that’s supposed to be the invitation, he makes no move to open the door, nor extend his umbrella.

“I’d appreciate it,” Gordon answers, teeth chattering. Tracy Island is temperate, balmy and breezy the whole year round. None of his brothers are great about the cold, but Gordon’s always been the worst. “…please?”

The answer is a heavy sigh and a slight softening of Parker’s tone. “I suppose. In you come then.”

* * *

Tracy Island has one kitchen. Creighton-Ward Manor has five, and they pass two of them as Parker leads Gordon through the manorhouse. Tracy island is also all glass and angles, light and breezy and elegant, if decidedly masculine in its appointments.  _This_  place makes it look practically metrosexual. It’s enormous, grand and old and dark, with buttresses and crenelations and other architectural words that probably match at least some of the looming structural elements of the house. It’s a place of bulk, thick and hefty, a fortress in the middle of the English countryside.

Gordon’s never really thought too hard about where Lady Penelope lives. She keeps a flat in London and he’s been  _there_ , once. It’s an airy, tasteful place, subtle and refined and drop-dead gorgeous, at least as far as houses are a reflection of their occupants. Gordon privately doesn’t think that this place suits Penny at  _all_.

“Are you taking me out back to kill me?” he jokes, and then hates the way his voice and his attempt at humor fall flat, awkward in the hush of the long dark hallway down which Parker’s leading him. There’s no reply.

No, as it turns out, they stop and duck into the third kitchen, low-ceilinged, smaller and less grand than the first two. For staff, Gordon guesses, or for staff in ages long past. He hates to think of Lady Penelope as someone who has a  _staff_. It offends some distant and vaguely patriotic sense of something he can’t quite place. Maybe capitalism. He’s not sure. In any case, the kitchen is empty, and Parker kicks a chair out from the worn wooden table in the center of the room, and proceeds stolidly to the stove to put the kettle on.

Gordon takes a seat, cautiously. At least it’s warm. Well, literally, anyway. Figuratively the atmosphere’s a little bit frosty. He’s never been exactly sure where he stands with Parker. Things between them are vaguely standoffish, for no reason he’s ever been able to quite pinpoint. Possibly he just rubs the older man the wrong way–that’s fine. Gordon’s long come to terms with the fact that he’s not everybody’s cup of tea, as it were. On that note–

“I’m, uh, I’m more of a coffee, black, four sugars kinda guy,” he pipes up, hesitant, as Parker thuds an ancient looking teapot down on the table and drops in a handful of teabags. He’s already backtracking as Parker returns with a kettle full of boiling water. “–but tea’s good too.”

Nothing’s been said by the time he has a full cup of piping hot tea in front of him–Earl Grey? Maybe? Orange Peking? Darlingling? He takes a cautious sip and doubts there’s any difference. Gordon drinks coffee, tea is for Grandmas and guys like Brains.

And ladies. Like Penelope.

“Uh, so, uh. How’s Penny? D'you think she’ll sleep long?”

Gordon can’t help thinking that the way Parker’s mug hits the top of the table is a little bit irritable. The tone of his voice  _definitely_  is. “ _Her ladyship_ ought to be awake by noon, but no sooner. She’s recovering nicely, but I must h'insist upon her rest.”

“Oh! I wasn’t saying I wanted to wake her, no, uh. No, she should sleep. I’m glad she’s getting better. Good. Umm, me too. From getting shot. And partway drowned. That was all I wanted to tell her, actually. That I’m fine, and it wasn’t her fault at all and I’m not mad. I had a nice time, even, up until the mafia shot me and then with the Vespa crash.” Gordon pauses, and hesitantly adds, “I’d just like her to talk to me again. She shouldn’t feel guilty. It’s not like she  _wanted_  anybody to shoot me.”

Parker swallows half his tea in a single, throat searing swig and squints across the table. Gordon shuffles his feet beneath his chair, feeling as though he’s thirteen years old again and in the principal’s office, about to be told how disappointing he is. He cradles the mug of tea in both hands, heat through the ceramic radiating into his palms as he stares into it. He’s not sure why he feels like he’s in trouble.

When Parker finally speaks, his tone is kinder than Gordon expects. “No one was trying to shoot  _you_ , you know,” he begins, and takes another swig of tea, draining the mug. When Gordon attempts to follow suit, he scalds his tongue. “You took a bullet meant for her ladyship. And I suppose all I’d want t'know is whether you’d do it again.”

Gordon wants the answer to be yes, but the truth is, he doesn’t know, his memory of the Vespa chase is a hazy muddle of adrenaline and that sudden shock of pain. “It wasn’t on purpose,” he hedges. “I guess I don’t know. I’ve never been shot at before. I don’t know if I’d know  _how_  to do it again.” That isn’t the answer he wants to give, so he takes a deep breath and continues, "But if it ever happened that she was in danger and something I could do could save her, I would do it. Whatever it was.”

Parker nods solemnly. “Well, we’ve that in common, at least. Ah, lad. She was never meant for this, you know. T'was her father’s job, and it was a position meant to retire when he did. She decided to inherit the work instead. Follow In her father’s footsteps, as it were.”

“Yeah. Well, it’s funny how that happens.”

This sentiment is a very private one, something Gordon’s never quite mentioned in front of his family. Jeff Tracy’s ambitions had pretty much taken over his sons’ lives. And that–well. It’s fine. But just fine. Gordon sometimes wonders if it’s what he would have wanted. There seems to be no getting out of it, now International Rescue has graduated from their father’s ambition into their father’s legacy. He doesn’t plan to say anything more, but the knowing look Parker gives him makes him wish he’d said less. Giving in and reaching for the cream and sugar, Gordon cools and sweetens his cup of tea and has a tentative sip, just to have an excuse to look away and occupy his hands. Not as bad as he expected–he’s still not quite dry and a hot drink is nice.

“I’m not getting any younger, Master Gordon,” Parker says, after a long pause. “But this was the first time she’d told me to stay 'ome for my own sake. I h'expect it won’t be the last. If she asks for you again, lad, I’d just like to be quite sure you’re…well. I’ve no doubt you’re capable. But you ought t'be prepared. It won’t be all tea and roses, with her ladyship.”

Gordon grins. “More like tea and danger?”

“Yes. H'exactly like that, in fact.” This, at last, gets a smile out of Parker, and he refills his mug and Gordon’s own. Then he glances at his watch. “I imagine she’ll be up soon. P'rhaps you’d like to bring up her morning tea?” He leans forward and taps his nose conspiratorily, “Between you and I, her ladyship could do with some cheering up. She’s been quite despondent over some sort of kerfuffle in Venice. Prob'ly she could use a laugh.”

Something fundamental has altered, between Gordon and Parker, and it feels like it’s changed the whole tone of the room. The small back kitchen has a small back door, and outside the storm has ceased, the sun is out, and the grounds outside are glinting with fresh fallen rain. There’s a greenhouse visible down the garden path from the kitchen door, and Gordon swallows the last of his tea and gets up. “I’d be happy to,” he agrees, beaming. “Are there any roses in the greenhouse?”


	7. etiquette and something else

She’s still nestled in the blankets when the door opens and she doesn’t look up immediately, expecting Parker with her morning tea. Sherbet is still drowsing on the duvet, snuggled close against her hip, and so far she’s managed not to wake the dear little creature. The weight in her chest finally feels as though it’s beginning to loosen, but as she rolls over, she still suffers a rather vicious fit of coughing that has her sink back into the pillows with a sigh. “Just on the table please, Parker.”

But then there’s a rattle of the silver tea tray with its bone china tea service, and Parker has never rattled a tea tray in his life.

Lady Penelope sits up and, for the first time in her life, squeaks in alarm. She pulls the blankets modestly up to her neck, though she’s more than fully covered in an old Tartan dressing gown of her father’s, bundled against the chill in her chest. “Gordon! What on earth–”

“Room service!” he announces, and he’s got that smile like the sun coming up at the sight of her. Penelope watches, more than a little bemused, as he very carefully proceeds with the tray, laying it gingerly on the table by the bedside. He shakes his hands out once he’s set it down. “Are you planning to eat all that? Man. Weighs a ton. Er, a tonne, I guess. Same difference.”

Her cheeks warm slightly and she feels vaguely defensive as she sits up and adjusts her blankets. There’s a soft  _whuff_  from Sherbet and his little paws twitch. “It’s tea and toast, the tray is solid silver. Why are you here, Gordon?”

Gordon looks away, rubbing a hand through his hair. There’s a soft red rose in a small vase on the corner of the tray, and he twists the stem just slightly so its heavy bloom tilts towards her. “Heard you were sick. And I called a couple times, but–”

“Parker took my compact. I’m meant to be recovering,” Penelope explains softly, though she’s not meeting his gaze either, suddenly her duvet has become utterly fascinating. It seems unnecessary to say that this isn’t exactly the only reason.

Gordon shrugs and suddenly seems uncertain about whether or not this was a good idea, shuffling his feet and sliding his hands into his pockets. “Uh. I only wanted to see how you were. You seem fine. So, uh. Mission accomplished! If you want me to leave, I–”

“No,” Penelope answers, perhaps a little too quickly. “No, that’s quite all right. May I offer you some tea?”

That brings the smile back, though it’s still a little shy. “Nah, Parker got me. You want some?”

At an unnatural social disadvantage, Penelope sits up straighter and clears her throat. “Etiquette dictates that I should pour it, but never mind that. Two sugars, just a touch of milk? If you’d be so kind?”

“My pleasure, your ladyship.”

There’s something she’s always found tremendously endearing about a man making her tea. Except, as egalitarian as they are, and as she tends to forget, the Tracys are Americans. And they mean well, but–watching him and wincing, Penelope can’t help but comment, “Gordon Tracy. You pour tea like you were born in a barn.”

_That_  makes him laugh, as he hands her the teacup, full to the brim and with the spoon left in it. She has a cautious taste and it’s predictably dreadful. But she sips at it politely anyway before setting it aside. “Sit, please.”

And he does–but on the edge ofthe bed, not in the chair beside it. The sudden change in weight jostles Sherbet awake with a protesting whine. “Whoops. Sorry boy. Hey, pup, how’re you doing?”

“ _Whuff._ ”

“Yeah, me too.” Gordon ruffles the tiny dog’s ears and Penelope can’t help but notice the way he’s rested his other hand lightly on his side. She stares longer than she should, remembering Venice and the canal, the water in her lungs. The way he’d been pale and shaking, and all that  _blood_ , let out of him because she’d been careless, cavelier about the fact that they were dealing with dangerous criminals.

It seems rude not to say something. “Are you…have you been healing all right? From Venice?” she asks, softly. And then, before he can say anything else, she reaches impulsively for his hand, claspses his fingers in hers. “I’m so very sorry, Gordon. I never should have allowed anything to happen to you, I should have been far more cautious than I was.”

His hand closes over hers and his fingers are warm, dry and strong and pleasant. “Hey. Half the reason I came is just to tell you it wasn’t your fault and I don’t mind. It was really nice, up until everything went horribly wrong! And even then–you’re okay, and I’m okay, and it all worked out. And now I’m the only member of my family who’s ever been shot! Bragging rights, right there.”

“It’s nothing to be proud of,” Penelope insists stubbornly, though she doesn’t pull her hand away. “I won’t permit it to happen again, you’re not cut out for my kind of work. It’s far too dangerous.”

“Penny, come on.” Gordon shifts slightly on the bed, sits up straight. “You wanna see? It’s not bad.”

Penelope shakes her head. “I’ve seen more than enough, Gordon. No, thank you.”

He nods, but there’s a peculiar look in his eyes and he gives her an evaluating stare. “Right, right. I appreciate you patching me up, by the way. You were gone before I could thank you, but Brains said it made a big difference. Won’t even scar, Kayo said.” Gordon grins. “Kind of a shame. Would’ve been a good addition to the collection. Here, lemme show you a couple you haven’t seen.”

Penelope arches an eyebrow and lifts a hand to protest, but Gordon’s already kicked off one of his socks, pulled up his pantleg, showing off a ring of glossy white scar tissue, ringing his ankle. “Shark bite. Baby Great White beached off the coast of Chile. Nipped me for my trouble when I got it to the shallows Alan told me not to mess with it, but what does he know abut sharks? Poor thing was just a baby. An angry, toothy, bitey baby.” Gordon shrugs, “But then, what do I know about babies?”

He tugs the cuff of his jeans up further, bares his knee and exposes a jagged, raised pink line carving its way up his calf, towards the kneecap. “Tripped on a fuel line while I was rigging a helipod on ‘2, landed on the edge of the launch track. Twenty stitches! Didn’t listen when Virgil told me to stop and bandage it, needed to get down to evac a lifeboat in rough seas, didn’t seem like there was time. Scott gave me hell for bleeding all over Pod B. Had to refit the entire interior.”

“Gordon–” Lady Penelope sighs, folding her hands in her lap, toying with her blanket, but he interrupts before she can say anytihng further, taking her hand back again.

“Oh, I’m just getting started.” Gordon’s free hand goes to his shirt collar, he flicks a button open and reveals a puckered, ugly old wound just above the ridge of his collarbone. “Snagged on a cargo hook trying to get a line around a capsized fishing boat off the coast of Newfoundland. Was the guy’s livelihood, I wasn’t about to let him lose it. John told me to leave it, but I didn’t listen.” He pulls his shirt collar wider, exposes a pale, slightly mottled patch of skin, extending down past his shoulder. “Chemical burn! Wedged up against a cracked pipe under a water treatment plant outside of Munich, melted right through my suit. Brains was freaking out in my ear the whole time.”

He falls silent and buttons his shirt back up, then shifts again to sit a little closer, laces his fingers through hers. “Look, you’re maybe noticing a pattern here. If you’re trying to tell me it’s too dangerous, well, I’ve heard  _that_ before. Usually I don’t listen, usually there’s something  _else_  telling me that it’s worth the risk. And if every scar means I saved somebody, then it’s always,  _always_  worth it.  _Especially_  if it’s you.”

Penelope feels her cheeks warming and wishes she could duck her head to hide the fact that she’s blushing, but his eyes are that warm, captivating brown, honey and amber, and too earnest to break away from. “Is this the famous Squid Sense I’ve heard so much about?” she asks, trying to lighten the mood.

This has precisely the opposite effect, and his hand leaves hers, comes up to touch her face, gentle, a little hesitant. “No,” he answers, and now his voice is soft, quieter than usual, “I’d get between you and a bullet any day. I think this might be something else.”

“I can take my own bullets, Gordon, thank you very much,” Penelope answers primly, but her eyes are brightening, blurring ever so slightly with tears. “But I do appreciate the sentiment.”

“I’m a sentimental kinda guy.” Sherbet’s insinuated his way into Gordon’s lap now, panting happily and squirming and having his belly rubbed. Sherbet’s always been a very good judge of character.

Penelope tilts her face up just slightly and smiles. “If you’d like to kiss me, I don’t think I’m contagious,” she blurts, and then immediately regrets how utterly charmless and awkward this is.

“Wouldn’t care if you were,” Gordon responds, and moves forward to kiss her, his thumb gently caressing her cheekbone and his palm warm on her cheek. She can feel the smile on his lips, and she smiles right back, leaning into it with a soft little sound of contentment. It’s something else indeed.

 


	8. epilogue - tissues and chess

Gordon stays, like a proper gentleman, to keep her company. Penelope attempts to get out of bed, but he won’t hear of it, and Parker arrives to reinforce this prohibition. The manservant suggests a game of chess to keep the pair of them busy. Gordon’s cagey when asked if he knows how to play, but his eyes light up when he sees Penelope’s chess set, all mahogany and teak and as old as the house is.

“Brains has been teaching me,” he admits, cross-legged on the bed across from her, as Penelope sets up the board. “I’m nowhere near as good as he is, though.”

It’s raining again and Sherbet’s asleep, and Parker has told Gordon off for making such a terrible cup of tea. He’s back again with a platter of sandwiches and other light fare, a box of tissues for Lady Penelope, and a cup of coffee for Gordon, and on the whole it’s a cozy afternoon.

At least until that first game.

“You said Brains was teaching you,” she accuses, as she tips her king over, defeated. “I went easy on you, as I was led to believe you were a  _beginner_.”

Gordon raises his hands defensively, “Hey, I didn’t say that! Have you ever _played_ with Brains? No one’s as good as Brains.  _John_ can’t even beat him.”

Penny’s eyes are glinting dangerously as she spins the board, switches their sides. “Again. That was a fluke. And I’ll be appropriately cutthroat this time.”

Two, three, four games later and it’s distinctly less cozy. “Uh. Look, no hard feelings? I can give Brains a call if you want, I’m sure he’d be glad to give you a few pointers.” Gordon shrugs and grins. “It’s only I told Virgil he could pick me up again before six–”

Her hand clasping his wrist is firm, like a  _vice_  this time. There’s not an ounce of affection left in her, and her voice is like steel. “Gordon Tracy. You’re not leaving until I’ve beaten you.”


End file.
